Lutron designs and manufactures automated light and shade controls for homes and commercial applications. Our story began with the control of electric light in the late 1950s, in a makeshift lab in New York City. There, Joel Spira a young physicist fascinated by the aesthetic manipulation of light, took over the spare bedroom in the apartment that he shared with his wife, Ruth, and set out to invent a solid-state device that would enable people to vary the intensity of the lights in their homes. The result? The world's first solid state dimmer-and the birth of the lighting control industry.
Since then, Lutron has been busy innovating. We hold over 2,700 worldwide patents and were the first company to create a system of dimmer and motorized window shades for controlling both electric light and daylight.